E 
8625 



I LIBRARY OFCONrTKESS.i 



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! UNITED STATUS OF AMItlllCAJ' 



The state of the Uiiioii viewed from a Christian stand-point 



SPEECH 



1871 



V 



OF 



HON. CHiRLES SITGEEiVES, 

OE NEW JERSEY, 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 25, 18G8. 



The Ilousebeing in the Committee of the Whole on 
the state of the Union — 

Mr. SITGREAVES said : 

Mr. Chaikmax: AVhile manifold schemes have 
heen and are being proposed in and out of Con- 
gress for the reconstruction of the States — 
schemes viewed from a civil or military, a parti- 
san or fanatical stand-point — I propose to view 
the state of the Union from a Christian stand- 
point, by the light of Christianity, and by so 
doing I only anticipate history. From that 
stand-point and by that light the acts of indi- 
viduals and nations of the past are now viewed 
and are now commended or execrated, it mat- 
ters not whether the individual wore the im- 
perial diadem of ancient Rome on his brow 
or the crown of a modern queen "on whose 
dominions the sun never sets," or wielded the 
power of a great republic, proclaiming the 
"liberty, fraternity, and equality" of man by 
the bastile and the guillotine, or whether men 
or nations in the pride of power and lust of 
plunder dismembered a people and hushed every 
murmur by thedungeon, the mine, and the bay- 
onet, or marched to conquest through rivers 
of human blood; the pen of impartial historj' 
from that stand-point has assigned to the actors 
their true places on the scrolls of fame or of 
infamy, and there they will remain by univer- 
sal consent forever. From that stand-point the 
acts and actors in "the great rebellion" both 
of the conquered and the conquerors will be 
viewed and a record made as enduring as time, 
and from which posterity will not appeal. We 
cannot escape a record from this stand-point 
ifwewould. It is in vain to allege, asmanydo 
allege, "the atheism of the Constitution." It 
is in vain to ignore the divinity of Jesus of 
Nazareth (as it was ignored by a member of the 
Thirty-Ninth Congress when he characterized 
"the doctrines of the sermon on the Mount" 



as "a duplicate of the writings of Socrates") 
and deduce from this that the men and acts of 
this generation will not be weighed by posterity 
in the scales of Christianity. 

Sir, there is no atheism in the Constitution; 
the assertion is a foul libel on the men who 
framed it. They were nominally Christians. 
They were men or compatriots of the men 
who, on the 4th of July, 177G, solemnly ap- 
pealing to " the Supreme Judge of the world," 
in the name and by "authority of the people," 
declared that the Colonies were, and of right 
ought to be, free and independent States; and 
for the support of that declaration, "with a 
firm reliance on the protection of Divine 
Providence," mutually pledged their lives, 
their fortunes, and their sacred honors. The 
framers of the Constitution met, not to declare 
the religious belief of the people, but to frame 
a civil compact between the States, to be or- 
dained, established, and ratified by the people 
of the United States through State conven- 
tions. But while the framers of the Constitu- 
tion ignored a declaration of religious belief, 
they required an official oath or affirmation — • 
a sanction which would not be required by a 
convention of atheists in the provisions of an 
atheistic Constitution, for no oath or affirma- 
tion could be binding on the conscience of an 
atheist, as he could swear by no one greater 
than himself. Sir, the idea that the men of 
the Revolution framed or intended to frame 
an atheistic Constitution for themselves and 
their posterity is at war with the sentiments 
of the people they represented, ex|iressed 
through their Colonial laws — at war with the 
frequent and fervent national appeals to Al- 
mighty God that He would give success to their 
arms in the mighty conflict for independence — 
at war with reason. I do not believe it pos- 
sible that a sane man can be an atheist. I 
believe, with the great Apostle of the GentileSi 






uttered eighteen centuries ago, that the works 
of creation and the laws of nature manifest the 
invisible power and Godhead of an Almiglity 
Creator — a fact thus beautifully expressed iu 
song by the gifted Addison: 

"Tiie spacious firmcament on high, 
With all the blue ethereal sky. 
And spangled heaveus — a shining frame — 
Their great Original proclaim. 

"The unwearied sun from day to day 
Does his Creator's power display. 
And publishes to every land 
The work of an Almighty hand. 

"Soon as the evening shades prevail 
The moon takes up the wondrous tale. 
And nighlly to the listening earth 
Repeats the story of her birth; 

"Whilst all the stars that round her burn. 
And all the planets iu their turn, 
Confirm the tidings as they roll, 
And spread the truth from porie to pole. 

"AVhat, though in solemn silence all 
Jlove round this dark terrestrial ball I 
AVliat, thougli no real voice nor sound 
Amidst their radiant orbs be found, 

"In reason's ear they all rejoice 
And utter foith a glorious voice. 
Forever singing as they shine 
The hand that made us is divine." 

There were infidels among our fathers, as 
there are infidels among their sons, but no 
atheists. 

The questions, then, are — was "the Supreme 
Judge of the world," recognized and appealed 
to by our fathers in the hour of their peril, the 
God of the Christian or the God of the infidel? 
Are we, and have we ever been, a Christian 
nation V Sir, the acknowledgment of the re- 
vealed law incorporated in the municipal rules 
of action of the Colonies and States; the fifty- 
four thousand houses of public worship through- 
out the length and breadth of the land dedicated 
to the living God; the observance of the Chris- 
tian Sabbath by the Congress, the State Legis- 
latures, and the people; our modes of thought 
and our ideas of right and wrong, molded by 
the precepts of the revealed law ; our varied 
institutions for the relief of suffering human- 
ity; our measurement of time, not from the 
creation of the earth nor the hegira of Ma- 
homet, but from the birth of Christ ; our posi- 
tion as a Christian people in the family of na- 
tions, accorded to us by universal consent — all 
proclaim that "the Supreme Judge of the 
world" to whom our fathers appealed, and 
who led them, as it were, in a pillar of cloud 
and five through the storm and darkness of the 
Revolution, was the God-man of whom it was 
predicted before Ilis incarnation at Bethlehem 
that His name should be called "Wonderful! 
Counselor! The Mighty God! The Everlast- 
ing Father! The Prince of Peace!" This and 
every enlightened nation on earth now bows 
before His altars and acknowledges the truth 
of His revelation and god- head ; every advance 



in science confirms this revelation : the astrono- 
mer views it in the stars, the geologist sees it 
recorded in the rocks, the philosopher reads 
it in the laws of nature, the student finds it in 
the accomplishment of prophecy, and we can 
all now see, even without the visions of the seer, 
that His dominion over the earth will be ' ' an 
everlasting dominion." 

By the light, then, of Christianity will the 
acts and motives of men and nations be viewed 
and recorded in all future history. Would to 
God that the recording angel could drop a tear 
on the record of the last decade of years and 
" blot it out forever." AVould to God that the 
people North and South had listened to the 
teachings of Him whose advent was announced 
by the song of angels as an advent of "peace 
on earth and good will to men," whose mission 
was a mission of love, and who taught us to 
pray "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive 
those who trespass against us ;" then we should 
not mourn a dismembered Union and the blood 
of five hundred thousand of our sons shed in 
fratricidal strife on a hundred battle-fields. 

Ten years since, this Republic, in the re- 
sources of her varied climate, in the liberty and 
happiness of her citizens, in the energy of her 
sons, in the observance of law and order, stood 
without a peer among the Governments of the 
earth ; her destinies shaped under God by Dem- 
ocratic men and measures, marched to a power 
and freedom that has no parallel under Heaven. 

What is the state of the Republic now ? A 
desolated South, a broken Union, ten States 
governed by the iron hand of a military des- 
potism ; a taxation which sits like an incubus 
on the industry and energies of the whole peo- 
ple ; public lands sufficient for the terx'itories 
of a vast empire (the common inheritance of 
the people) given to incorporated companies; a 
national debt created in four years greater than 
England, with her thousand ships and long and 
bloody wars waged to maintain the balance of 
power in Europe, has been accumulating for 
the last two centuries ; the compacts of the 
Constitution violated by legislation and public 
faith laughed at. 

. Why is this ? Why, in the short space of ten 
years, has this Eden of national political hap- 
piness been turned into an earthly hell ? Why ? 
Because the accursed serpent of radicalism was 
permitted to enter the sacred j^ortals of liberty. 
We listened to his promise, "Thou shalt not 
die." We ate of the forbidden fruit, and the 
result was sorrow and mourning, desolation 
and death. The radical well knew that the 
only weapon which could accoiriplish his hell- 
ish work of war and disunion was the weapon 
of hate. The radical of the South inculcated 
a political and moral hatred of the North, 
argued the right of secession as no infraction 
of the Federal compact, and appealed to the 
ambition and greed of the great southern heart. 
The radical of the North inculcated a moral 



3 • 



and political hatred of the South in the fnrum, 
in the press, and tiniillyby scattering the Ililper 
book, indorsed by sixty members of Congress, 
•as a campaign document broadcast over tiie 
land — a book intended to excite sectional 
hatred, massacre, spoliation, servile and fra- 
tricidal war. 

The Democratic party stood, as it always 
had stood, for the Constitution and the Union, 
between ''the living and the dead, and the 
plague for a while was stayed." They appealed 
to the people by the memories of their fathers 
and the glories of the old Hag. The repre- 
sentative radical proclaimed that flag "a 
flaunting lie." By the compacts of the Con- 
stitution the representative radical proclaimed 
that Constitution "a covenant with death and 
a league with hell." By the MockI of our sons, 
threatened to be shed in a fratricidal war, the 
representative radical proclaimed that blood- 
letting was necessary. In vain they told the 
people that sectional hatred would dissolve the 
Union, and made every effort to save that 
Union by compromises, by an appeal to that 
law of love which (rod implanted in the bosoms 
of our fathers wIumi they established and or- 
dained the Constitution. Their voice was un- 
heeded. The radical derided them as "Union- 
savers," and told ihe people that there would 
be "no rebellion, no dissolution of the Union:" 
and v/hen at last the [jower of the Uemocracy 
went down under the triumph of a sectional 
party, inspired by sectional hatred, elected Ij}' 
a minority of the people, the die was cast and 
the result was disunion and blood. The result 
we feel in every section of this broad land, and 
it wmU be felt by genei'ations yet unborn. Such 
has been the result of the radical doctrine of 
hate, in opposition to the precepts of the Chris- 
tian gospel of love. 

The die was cast; the flag of the Union was 
unfurled; from every iiill and valley of the 
North our sous gathered around that flag, 
determined that not a star should be torn fi-om 
that glorious banner. They marched to sus- 
tain the Constitution and maintain the Union. 
1"he reprcsentativt^s of the nation, with, I 
believe, but two dissenting voices, declared 
by solemn resolution — 

"That this w.Tr is not wajjed on our part in any 
spirit of oru'rcssion, not- tor any purpose of conquest 
or subjugation, nor purpose of ovcrtlirowins or in- 
terfering with tlierislit.sor ustal)lished institutions of 
those Stntcs. but to dcfcnil and maintain llic suiiruiii- 
iicy of tbo C'oiislirntiiin, and to preserve tlio tlnion 
with all tlie (li:,'nity, ei|uality, and rights of the sev- 
eral States uuiuipaircd." 

This declaration was a solemn pledge to the 
South in the name of the North and the na- 
tion, a pledge to the world — a covenant with 
the gallant men who inarched to sustain the old 
flag, and poured out their hearts' blood in its 
defense. Under that pledge our sons pressed 
to the conflict, under that pledge they fought, 



under that pledge they died; by that pledge 
we obtained men and money from the N^orth, 
and by that pledge we constructed and strength- 
ened a Union party in the South. Had the 
war been waged for the purposes now declared 
our sons had not died. Surely in the eyes of 
that God who will hold nations as well as 
individuals responsible for violated fiiith and 
broken pledges the radical will be held re- 
sponsible for the blood of our sons. Sir, when 
the Union soldier met the rebel in deadly con- 
flict, the one to sunder the Union, the other to 
maintain it, who does not know th;:t if the 
radical had then proclaimed in any cily of the 
North what he now proclaims, that the war 
was waged for the purposes of conquest, and 
when the war ended by the triumph of north- 
ern arms, the States in rebellion would be 
declared "conquered provinces" and given 
over to negro domination, he would have been 
denounced as a sympathizer with the South, 
as a traitor who would create disaft'ection in 
the Army, disloyalty among the peoide, and 
he would have been hung unshriven to the 
nearest lamp-post by a loyal mob. 

Mr. Chairman, I never had any sympathy 
with the monstrous heresy of secession. 1 
gave my time and means and only son to aid 
in crushing the rebellion and maintaining the 
Constitution and the Union. I regard that 
Constitution, and the Union guaranteed by 
that Constitution, as a sacred gift of God to 
our fathers, to be bequeathed intact to the teem- 
ing millions of posterity who will live and die 
under the flag of the I'epublic. But I do have 
a sympathy for the honor and faith of my coun- 
try. 1 hold that the ftiilh of a nation should 
be sacred under all circumstances. I would 
have the faith of my country, like "Ca?sar's 
wife, not only pure, but nnsus])ceted." I 
hold that the legislator in the legislative hall 
should maintain faith and honor in his legis- 
lative acts, as he would maintain his own per- 
sonal faith and honor. Take away the laith 
and honor of a Gover^iraent and you takeaway 
from that Government all that is desirable in 
the eyes of God or man. In the light of Chris- 
tianity I charge the radical, when he proclaims 
that the States lately in rebellion are "con- 
quered provinces," that they are out of th« 
protection of the Constitution, out of the 
Union, and places them under a iniliiary des- 
potism, with a gross violation of the national 
faith, solemnly plighted by the reiiresentativea- 
of the nation on the floor of Congress. I ciiarge. 
him with an infraction of the plainest precept* 
of Christianity, and believe that for this infrac- 
tion God has brought upon us as a nation the 
curse and punishment due to the covenant- 
breaker. 

How was this pledge of a Christian nation 
redeemed? Under it our young men gathered to 
the 6ght; under it some States were saved to 



the CTnicm ; under it the battle was fought, the 
victory won ; every drop of blood that was shed 
was to maintain, not to destroy, the Union. 
Secession and its champions are trampled in 
the dust. A radical Congress assemble and 
pass acts for thegovernment of the States lately 
in rebellion aa conquered provinces, and rad- 
ical leaders declare that "the liberty, property, 
and lives of the conquered are at the mercy of 
the conqueror by the laws of war." What laws 
of war? Not the laws of war ameliorated by 
the humane teachings of Christianity, but laws 
of war which justified the Tartar Khan in rear- 
ing his pyramid of a hundred thousand human 
skulls ; laws of war which justified slavery ; 
laws of war, recognized and established by 
robber chieftains and ruffian feudal lords, 
when might was right and vengeance a virtue. 
The Thirty-Ninth Congress did by legislation 
what the southern traitors by force of arms 
could not effect, a dissolution of the Union; 
the Thirty-Ninth Congress reenact what the 
rebel confederacy enacted, that an act of seces- 
sion puts the seceding States out of the Union; 
the Thirty-Ninth Congress resolved that the 
seceding States should be kept out of the Union 
by the bayonet; the seceding States attempted 
to keep those States out of the Union by the 
bayonet, a heresy against which we protested, 
and against v/hich we struggled in a four years' 
war ill fields of blood and carnage unparalleled 
in the history of modern warfare. 

Sir, the Christian patriot and statesman, re- 
vering the comiiacts of the Constitution, will 
say, as the nation said during the great rebel- 
lion, that no State can put itself out of the 
Union either by peaceable secession or by 
force of arms. We appealed to the God of Bat- 
tles and God gave us more than a victory of 
arms — He gave us a repentant people. The 
Southron had been educated in an idea that 
his paramount allegiance was due to the State. 
He fought for that idea. He was defeated. 
He ottered to purge his heresy by an oath that 
he would support and defend the Constitution 
and the Union. The radical spurned tlie re- 
pentant sinner. His cry was hate and ven- 
geance. Sir, any Government would have 
hailed the return of its prodigal children as a 
matter of policy except a radical Government. 
The patriot who loves his country should hail 
it ; the statesman who would have the llepublic 
perpetual in the love of her citizens should hail 
it. A Christian republic, acting in accordance 
with the benign principles of the Man of Cal- 
vary, would rejoice that this " my son was 
dead and is alive again : he was lost and is 
found." 

Mr. PRICE. Will the gentleman from New 
Jersey allow me to ask him a single question ? 

Mr. SITG REAVES. Yes. sir. 

Mr. PRICE. The gentleman is referring to 
the history of the prodigal sou. As he is 



speaking from a Christian stand-point I would 
like to know whether he wishes us to under- 
stand that the rebels who took up arms against 
the Government occupy to-day the position of 
the prodigal mentioned in the Scriptures? 

Mr. SITGREAVES. The great mass of 
them. 

Mr. PRICE. That is all I wanted to know. 

Mr. SITGREAVES. I resume at the point 
where I was interrupted. 

I never doubted the honor, patriotism, and 
magnanimity of the nation. I know that the 
nation would have hailed the return of these 
erring children, and thus bound them to the 
Union by chains of love, stronger than ada- 
mant, forever. I say ''the Union," for they 
were bound to our republican form of gov- 
eriunent by education and instinct. They did 
not wage war against ''a repul)Iican form of 
government," but against the Union; they 
warred for the preservation of their property 
in slaves; they adopted ii constitution as 
republican in form and spirit as the Constitu- 
tion of 1787. There was no reason to doubt 
their devotion to a rejmblican form of gov- 
ernment; the indissolubility of the Unioii was 
the rock on which they split. Yet when they 
were willing to renounce this heresy and give 
freedom to the slave, we rejected their advances 
with scorn; and although beggared and dis- 
armed, incapable of making either an aggres- 
sive or defensive war, we subject them to all 
the horrors of a military government, to be 
followed by political subjection to a race of 
men just emerged from slaver)', under the pre- 
tense that they " are opposed to a republican 
form of government." 

Mr. Chairman, a code of laws framed in a 
spirit of hatred is bad |>olicy in every Govern- 
ment, but suicidal in a republic. The pages of 
history tell us that no monarch, no nation, can 
violate the Christian laws of love with impu- 
nity by the administration of oppressive laws. 
Where is the individual or nation who has been 
taught by oppression to love the opjiressor. 
Look at Ireland. Has oppression taught her 
sons to love the hand of her Saxon tyrant? 
Centuries have passed away since the independ- 
ence of Ireland was trodden down in the blood 
of the O'Connors and ten thousand Irishmen 
on the fatal field of Alhonra?; for centuries 
their loyalty has been enforced by the bayonet ; 
yet at this hour the sons of Ireland in every 
land only bide their time when they can crush 
their oppressors. Centuries have passed away, 
yet hostility to their oppressor and hatred to 
the union with Great IJiitain have heen trans- 
mitted as an heir-loom from father to son, (a 
fact known to the world and candidly admitted 
by Mr. Gladstone in a recent speech to his 
constituents.) This undying faith in the re- 
demption of Ireland, this undying hatred to 
the oppressor and soul-longing for the resto- 



ration of the green flag, is thus truly expressed 
by an Irish bard : 

"Tho Irish inntlier, as she pressed 
The warm, lull nipple to her breast, 
Tlius luUabicd her bnbe to rest: 

"Twill rise again.' 

"It crossed the sea, the Irish race, 
Uprooted fiom their dwellinq: place. 
Came here new destinies to faeo — 
It rose again. 

"Oh, penerons, proud, and gallant race, 
So oltcn rash, so rarely base; 
Sure as the bright sun holds its place 
"i'wiU rise again. 

"The old srccn flag, the good old cause, 
l»espitc the check of cnimping laws, 
Shall yet obtain the world's applause, 
When risen again. 

"Wherever England's flag may float. 
Or slaves may wear her scarlet coat. 
Leap, L'cniaus, at the tyrant's throat. 
And try again 1 " 

Ah, when tlie time shall come when England 
«fiall be C()m|)assed with hostile fleets or her 
throne rocked in the throes of revolution, her 
statesp.ien will then know that Ireland should 
have been governed by the Christian law of 
love. And that time will come. The green 
flag "will rise again ;" the Irish harp, so long 
silent in Tara's halls, will sound the jubilee of 
Irish freedom. 

Acts of hatred by individuals or nations are 
visited, sooner or later, by the retributive jus- 
tice of Heaven — to the individual by the halter, 
the penitentiary, orthe undying, witheringscorn 
of men, as in tlie case of the jailor of Ander- 
sonville ; to the nation by revolution, rebellion, 
demoralization ot"lhe people, or destruction of 
their material interests. Cotton was once king; 
it gave us the balance of trade, it erected our 
manufactures, and spread the sails of our mer- 
chant ships on every ocean. The insane hatred 
of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, by a refusal to 
restore the Union and by the imposition of an 
onerous tax on cotton, has not only driven that 
great staple of the South from the markets of 
the world, but has driven it away forever. We 
have the testimony of a Republican Senator 
on the floor of the Senate that the British man- 
ufacturers now produce from India cotton an 
article equal to the American staple, and he 
feared we had lost this great interest forever; 
and so we have, ibr the vast lands of the British 
Empire, capable of producing that staple, will 
hereafter sujiply the world. The Thirty-Ninth 
Congress have detiironed cotton as king of 
trade; but at what a cost! — starvation of the 
Southern people, stagnation of Northern cap- 
ital, and destruction of a great national resource 
of the nutioii Ibr all time to come. 

OlKcial dishonesty was once the exception, 
now it is the rule. The gross violation of the 
national faith and disregard of constitutional 
rights by the Thirty-Ninth Congress have pro- 
duced their legitimate fruits in an ofEcial cor- 



ruption that has no parallel among men. 
But a few days since the astounding and hu- 
miliating fact was proclaimed on the floor of 
this House by the able chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Ways and Means [Mr. Schexck] 
and the eloquent member from Illinois, of the 
same committee, [Mr. Logax,] that it was 
impossible to collect the whisky tax through 
the authorizedagentsof the Government; that 
the major part of the great army of revenue 
oilicials were composed in effect of double 
rectified rascals. And, sir, these declarations 
are true. The hard-handed laborers, the in- 
dustry of the country, pay an annual tax of 
millions to fill up the deficit made by these 
stupendous otficial frauds. 

Legislation inspired by hate — denunciations 
of haired in and out of Congress, ignoring the 
law of love by giving free rein to the unbri- 
dled passions of men, inculcation of revenge in 
the ])ress, upon the stump, and in the legisla- 
tive hall — has resulted in a fearful demoraliza- 
tion of the people. Violence, rape, fraud, and 
arson stalk rampant throughout the whole 
land. The Police Gazettes record the fact 
that not a day passes without tiie shedding of 
bl^od by the hand of the murderer. 

The spirit of hate inaugurated by the radi- 
cals. North and South, during the rebellion and 
perpetuated by the Thirty-Ninth Congress, in 
the names of " loyalty, liberty, and liunuinity," 
has invaded even the sanctuaries of the Most 
High — men wearing the livery of the court of 
heaven, ordained to minister at the altars of 
Him who summed up all the commandments 
in one great law of love, preach all the unchari- 
tablenessof party hate, blasphemously incorpo- 
rate it ill their prayers, trail the standard of the 
King of Kings in the filthy mire of politics, and 
" crook the pregnant hinges of the knee" to 
Cajsar, and they have their reward. Surely 
there is no more pitiable sight on God's foot- 
stool than the modern political priest. Angels 
must view such treason to Jesus with amaze- 
ment, the true Christian with abhorrence, and 
even the radical, while " he loves the treason, 
must despise the traitor." 

Sir, who doesnot know that hatred is the cor- 
ner-stone on which every measure of recon- 
struction is based? The animus is seen in 
almost every speech on reconstruction. No 
measure has been proposed or passed without 
an appeal to the bitter passions engendered in 
the hite conflict of arms. An appeal to this fell 
spiritby radical legislators, a radical press, and 
radical priests has enabled the ra ;icaLs to tear 
ten stars from our glorious old flag, and to 
enthrone a government of the b.ayonet over tiie 
ruins of the Constitution in ten States; while 
the firmness of one man, under God. pi'evented 
the establishment of a military gf)verrment in 
every State of this Union. I allude to the act 
of Congress of the (Jth of February, ISGG, to 
amend the Frcedmen's Bureau, extending mil- 



6 



itary jurisdiction to all parts of the United 
States containing freedmen or refugees. I need 
not say that this embraced, or could in a day 
be made to embrace, every State in this Union, 
loyal or disloyal. This bill intended to subvert 
the constitutions of theStates, strike down the 
right of trial by jury, and trample down the 
God-given liberties of the people under the heel 
of military power — this bill, which, in violation 
of the plainest precepts of the Constitution, 
placed the military above the civil power — this 
bill, intended to give the President the power 
of an a-utocrat, and which was passed by every 
Republican vote in both Houses, only failed to 
become a law by the ])utriotisra and firmness, 
under God, of that President. Such is the 
recorded act of the intentions of a Republican 
Congress, and there ic v.'ill stand on record for- 
ever as a warning to future generations of the 
madness and danger of partisan legislation in- 
spired by partisan hate. 

Mr. Chairman, the great leader of the Re- 
publican party in this House [ilr. Stevens] 
has introduced a bill, intended as a model 
school for all the schools in the nation, requir- 
ing that the equality of man enunciated in the 
Declaration ot independence shall be inscribed 
" in large capitals," on "'unfading material," 
over the main entrance of every school-room, 
and cause it to be recited at least once a day 
by the students: and that over every school 
cemetery should be inscribed the "immortal 
words:" 

" Pallida mors equo pulsat pede pauperum taber- 
nas reguui tunes." 

Sir, I would advise that this bill of the Cth 
of February, IStJii, providing for the extension 
of military jurisdiction in all the States, should 
be engraved on tablets of bronze or marble 
and placed in every legislative hall, that future 
legislators may n-ad it as a Republican com- 
mentary of a Republican Congress on the 
powers of the Constitution, and over the grave 
of radicalism, now being dug so deep that there 
will be no resurrection, I would inscribe "on 
unfading material:" 

" Quoin Dcus vult pcrderc prius dementat." 

I have said that this attempt to establish a 
military jurisdiction in all the States was only 
prevented, imder God. from becoming a law by 
the patriotism of Andrew Johnson. From the 
hour that Andicw Johnson returned that bill 
to the Senate v;itli his veto he has been hunted 
by the bloodhounds of party hate with a fe- 
rocity unparalleled in the modern history of 
partisan wart'are. That veto is the key to im- 
peachment; that veto was in reality the "high 
crimes" of which he was guilty in the eyes of 
the Radicals ; that, veto explains v/hy the legis- 
lative would curtail the executive power of the 
Governmeni; that veto explains the astound- 
ing fact that a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives was permitted unrebuked to pro- 
cJaira before the nation and the world the 



atrocious charge that Andrew Johnson, Pres- 
ident of the United States, was accessory in the 
murder of Abraham Lincoln. 

Andrew Johnsoti does not hold his high 
position by my vote or by the vote of the Dem- 
ocratic party, yet I cannot but admire the man 
for honestly adhering to the principles for 
which the war was waged. I admire the man 
as he stands erect and undismayed, for the 
compacts of the Constitution and for the resto- 
ration of the Union, against party hate enun- 
ciated by a partisan press and a partisan Con- 
gress, firm and unyielding as a rock in the 
ocean lashed by the fury of the tempest. 

It will not be denied that a party has existed 
sitice the days of Alexander Hamilton in favor 
of a construction of constitutional ]iower in 
favor of the Federal Government and against 
the reserved powers of the State. It will not 
be denied that the Democratic party have ever 
been the champions of the reserved rights of 
the States, while at the same time they main- 
tain in letter and spirit every power delegated 
to the Federal Government. By these princi- 
ples of the Democratic jtarty the Government 
lias been administered and its policy shaped. 
Under God that grand old party has pilaced 
this Republic in the van of nations. That 
policy was a strict adherence to the letter and 
spirit of the Constitution. 

Sir, I believe, with the Democratic party, 
that the Constitution is a masterpiece of wis- 
dom, capable of embracing a continent or a 
world; that it is a constitution of checks and 
balances — checks against despotic powers, a 
triple government of legislative, executive, 
aiuJ judicial brtmches ; that you cannot im- 
l)air the power of one without disturbing the 
harmony of all; that centralization of the 
powers of the Government in one branch is a 
despotism. 

Sir, the Constitution of our fiithers was 
founded on the Christian law of love; it v>'as a 
work of coiuiu'omise, glorious in its inception, 
intended to be as lasting as time; a sacred 
covenant which no man under its protection 
can break without meeting the retributive 
justice of heaven. The men of the South 
attempted to break this heaven-born compact, 
and their land is desolate, their people beg- 
gared, and mothers weeping in almost every 
household, and will not be comforted because 
their sons are not. The very instincts of the 
peoiile of the North are to maintain sacred the 
compacts of that Constitution in all their 
entirety in letter and spirit; for this they poured 
out their blood and treasure as no other people 
have done. They were earnest in the war for 
the Constitution to the death; they are earnest 
now. I am not a prophet nor the son of a 
prophet, but I predict to the dominant party in 
this House that if you carry out infractions of 
the Constitution, by bills of reconstruction 
and confiscation and legislative centralization, 



before ten 3'ears have run their course you will 
as a party lie ground to powder between the 
upper and nether millstones of the States and 
the people. 

I said liie Constitution is a compact ; it is a 
covenant with the States, a covenant with the 
people, and a covenant with the individual man. 
Constitutions are made for minorities, not for 
majorities. Under theaegis of that covenant the 
wood-sawyer in your streets, the pioneer wood- 
cutter of tlio West in his log caliin, has rights as 
sacred as the shoddy millionaire in his brown- 
etone palace ; these rights all the power of a 
Congress or a State Legislature cannot destroy 
under any pretense whatever. In these rights 
he should be protected against the world. Sir, 
if there were but a single loyal man in the 
South who had riglits under thatcovenantbefore 
the rebellion, when you strike down those 
rights and jilace him under a government of 
the bayonet, and say that his life, liberty, and 
property may be disposed of without due pro- 
cess of law, you violate the most sacred rights 
of a citizen of the llepublic ; and when you 
violate the rights of one you violate the rights 
of all ; you stab liberty at the very horns of her 
altar. 

When you strike down that great bulwark 
of the right of the citizen against executive or 
legislative despotism — the great writ of habeas 
corpus — extorted from a tyrant king at Runiiy- 
uiede. and incor[iorated in our Constitution, 
you violate his constitutional rights, and you 
again stab liberty at the very horns of her altar. 
When you ignore constitutional law to legis- 
late for partisan power or partisan hate you 
display to the world an inconsistency, an igno- 
rance, and a lolly that must retard the advance 
of republican principles and strengthen the 
thrones of kings. We see it in every bill of 
reconstruction. While you curse England with 
a grievous curse for recognizing the rebel con- 
federacy as a '•belligerent power," you iiless 
thegreat '• Commoner'' of thisand the last Con- 
gress with a heartfelt blessing for his new ver- 
sion of international law that the rebels were a 
''belligerent power," which alone could make 
them ''conquered provinces." Under the 
great law-giver of Israel half the tribes stood 
on Mount Gerizim to bless the good, and half 
on Mount Ebal to curse the evil ; it was 
reserved for the modern Radical Levite to de- 
nounce the alternate curse and blessing of 
Hi-aven on the same ))rincipleand the same act. 

Congress, under the inspiration of Radical 
leaders, forgot the fact, settled for ages, that if 
•A people engaged in war are belligerents they 
cannot be traitors, and if traitors they cannot 
be belligerents, and legislate agains*; these 
people as belli?'>rents and at the same time 
refuse them representation as traitors. 

Radical statesmen seem utterly oblivious 
and sublimely ignorant of the fact that they 
expose themselves to the derision of every 



well-read lawyer on earth when they urge the 
legislative branch to declare the rebels as bel- 
ligerents, and at the same time urge the judi- 
cial branch to try the rebel chief as a traitor. 

Mr. Chairman, I do not believe that the 
sacred ark of our liberties can be overthrown 
by armed traitors or a hostile world. I do not 
believe it can be overthrown by the Executive, 
because he has no aggressive powers; I do 
not believe it can be overthrown by the judi- 
ciary, for they have no aggressive power; but 
I do believe that it can be overthrown by a foe 
more potent than armed traitors or a hostile 
world — that foe is constructive power. All 
writers on mixed forms of government agree 
that the legislative branch is aggressive; and 
it was against this aggressive usurping power 
of the Legislature that the barriers of the 
judiciary were erected. Sir, it is no wonder, 
then, that the nation was startled at the assump- 
tion of power by this Congress, first by a 
bill requiring a two-third vote of all the jus- 
tices of the Supreme Court, and finally by a 
bill forbidding the Supreme Court by even a 
unanimous vote to declare an act of Congress 
unconstitutional. Sir, precedent begets pre- 
cedent, and this precedent would enable any 
Congress to overturn the Republic. 

Mr. PILE. Will the gentleman allow me 
to ask him one question? 

Mr. SITG REAVES. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PILE. The gentleman has spoken, ag 
I understand, of the protection of the rights 
of loyal men in the South. 1 wish to ask 
the gentleman whether those loyal men, white 
and black, in the South»do not ask Congress 
for their protection to overthrow and repu- 
diate those Slate governments set up by Mr. 
Johnson, and reconstruct those States upon 
the policy of Congress? 

Mr. S1TGREAVE3. The gentleman has 
misunderstood me. I was speaking of loyal 
men who were entitled to the rights guaran- 
tied by the Constitution prior to the rebellion. 

Suppose)'our reconstruction schemes are car- 
ried out bygiving the domination of the south- 
ern States to the black man, and some future 
partisan Congress should find it necessary to 
disfranchise a^Stute in order to maintain their 
power — they declare that New York, Ohio, or 
Pennsylvania have no republican form of gov- 
ernment because they have not given suffrage 
to the negro — they may enact (as they would 
have a right to do under this precedent) that 
the Supreme Court shall mit decide the uncon- 
stitutionality of an act of Congress without the 
concurrence of every member of the bench, 
and one justice would thus control the action 
of the court. That one justice could be 
found. Human nature is the same in every 
age. The despot James II found a Jeflreys 
to execute his hate and bathe the ermine of a 
chief justice in the blood of judicial murder; 
and party malice can find Jeflreys now to exe- 



8 



cute party hate. Or Congress may declare (as 
this Congress have declared) that they have the 
exclusive power to decide the form of a State 
government, and in either case the result would 
be that the people of New York, Ohio, or 
Pennsylvania would ha disfranchised and placed 
by some reconstruction act under a government 
of the bayonet, and could not appeal from this 
damning outrage. Sir, this very argument 
will be used by the radical when the southern 
States are reconstructed on a negro basis. 

Sir, before this constructive power claimed 
by Congress to overthrow the judiciary — that 
august bulwark against despotism ; that pride 
and glory of American people — all other powers 
claimed by this and the last Congress shrink 
into insignilicance. Sir, I ask any member of 
this House, Conservative, Radical, or Demo- 
crat, if the framers of the Constitution ever 
intended to confer such a power on Congress? 
I ask, if it had been incorporated in the Con- 
stitution, if the people of the States or the 
people of a single State would ever have rati- 
fied it? Yet this is the Constitution you would 
give to your children — a power in Congress to 
disfranchise a State, and place the lives, lib- 
erties, and property of its citizens under mili- 
itary rule upon the same pretense now urged for 
the passage of reconstruction bills, and without 
appeal to any human tribunal. Sir, the time 
is rapidly approaching when these " glittering 
generalities'' about "republican form of gov- 
ernment" and '' liberty, equality, and loyalty," 
which now conceal the schemes of reconstruc- 
tion, will be torn from radicalism like the glit- 
tering vail from the f^^ce of the false prophet of 
Khorassan, and the people will see the face of 
a hideous serpent. 

Yes, sir, there are modes of overturning the 
Constitution by violating its spirit while adher- 
ing to its letter. It was done in New Jersey. 
The late constitutional amendments were never 
submitted to the people. Q'he Legislature was 
convened in extra session but two months be- 
fore the annual election, to prevent that sub- 
mission and to pass these amendments, and 
they did pass them. This act of the New Jer- 
sey Legislature was in strict accordance with 
the letter, but who will say that it was not a 
gross violation of the spirit of the Constitu- 
tion ? thus show'ing that the organic law may 
be altered not only without the knowledge 
but against the will of the people. Yet this 
action of the New Jersey Legislature was ap- 



plauded by men who disfranchised ten States 
because they had " no republican form of gov- 
ernment." 

Such are a few of the many fruits of recon- 
struction. Sir, we want no reconstruction; 
we want restoration. This Congress can re- 
store the Union in an hour, and thus confirm 
the principles of and obey the behests of that 
great Magna Chavta of the American States and 
the American citizen — the Federal Constitu- 
tion. 

Continue your insane policy of reconstruc- 
tion, based on the corner-stone of partisan 
hate and partisan ambition, those accursed 
principles which impel hatan in every conflict 
with Ood and man, and so correctly person- 
ified in Milton's Portress of hell ; carry out 
your policy of striking down the independence 
of the judiciary and the constitutional powers 
of the Executive, and so sure as efi'ect follows 
cause so sure will this Republic be drowned 
in a sea of blood, so sure will the fairest tem- 
ple of human liberty that the sun of heaven 
ever shone upon go down with a fall that will 
shake the nations, and you and j'our children 
and the hopes of human freedom will perish 
alike in the mightj' ruins. 

But disband your southern army ; restore 
the Union of the States; let your legislation 
now and henceforth be inspired by the lav/ of 
Christian love, by that heaven-born charity 
which alone recognizes the true bi'otherhood 
of man ; forgive your brother his trespasses 
as you hope to be forgiven ; let the sublime 
doctrines of Him who spake as never man 
spake permeate every law ; let the ministers 
of the living God burn no more unhallowed in- 
cense on His altars, but teach the people that 
" Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a 
reproach to any people." Then the voice of 
disunion will be heard no more in our borders : 
then, with the eye of undoubting faith, we can 
look through the cycles of coming ages and 
behold this great Republic standing immuta 
ble in her strength, waving her glorious flag, 
emblazoned with a himdred stars, over these 
States, over the British Provinces, overthe land 
of the Montezuraas, and the Antilles islands 
of the sea, the great symbol of human freedom 
and the sovereignty of God as the Pailer of the 
nation, until the last seven thunders shall utter 
their voices, until the heavens shall be rolled 
together as a scroll, and the elements shall 
melt with fervent heat. 



Printed at the Congressional Globe Office. 



